Why is Psychology important?

Everyone has a rough idea of ​​what psychologists (at least those in the clinical branch) do. However, in general the role of psychology in our society tends to be minimized, limiting it to the treatment of mental disorders, when the truth is that the contributions of psychology are multiple and varied.

Since psychology studies the behavior of people as a whole, the benefits derived from the knowledge acquired by this science can be applied to many fields. If you are interested in knowing why is psychology so important, this article can be very useful to you.

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Psychology and its applications

Psychology is usually defined as the study of human behavior and mental processes. This definition may vary depending on the theoretical orientation or the field of application; for example, the object of study can easily be extended to nonhuman animals, as in comparative psychology and ethology.

Psychological research is encompassed in many cases

within what we know as "basic psychology", dedicated to obtaining knowledge about processes such as perception, memory or reasoning, which influence any type of human behavior.

The best known application of psychology is its clinical aspect, which aims to help solve mental and behavioral problems to improve people's quality of life. Community psychology has objectives similar to those of the clinic but its focus is more macro, since it works with large population groups rather than with individuals.

Other well-known branches of this science are educational psychology, which analyzes learning with the aim of enhancing it, and psychology of organizations, which applies the theories developed by social psychology to the field professional. Forensic psychology, for its part, focuses on psychological evaluation to support judicial processes, and sports psychology aims to improve sports performance.

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Why is psychology important?

Due to the breadth of the field of psychology, its importance depends to a large extent on the specific application to which we refer. However, in this section we will reflect on the relevance of psychology at a general level, emphasizing some of its key contributions.

1. To understand living beings

Psychological theories are fundamental to explain the behavior of animals, especially people: any activity produced in a human society is susceptible to being analyzed from psychology since it will always involve the participation of basic mental processes. In relation to the study of human groups, social psychology is particularly important.

Behavioral analysis is not only interesting in itself for a large number of people, but it also allows apply the knowledge acquired to many different fields, especially within the social and natural sciences such as medicine, sociology, economics, history, political science, demography, linguistics, veterinary medicine or zoology.

2. To increase the quality of life

Many people consider that the ultimate goal of psychology is to increase the well-being and quality of life of others. Although other professionals have different conceptions, the truth is that service to other people has been a central aspect in the development of psychology and continues to be so today.

Psychology is obviously useful for enhancing mental health and personal growth, but the benefits of this science are not limited to the psyche. Health psychology, for example, seeks physical well-being and disease prevention through of the acquisition of healthy behavioral habits, a key aspect that medicine tends to stop side.

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3. To improve relationships

The knowledge derived from psychological science is very important for the improvement of human relationships. So are the psychologists who are best trained to improve social skills of shy people, to mediate in cases of divorce or to intervene in mobbing and bullying, among other functions.

4. To enhance professional performance

In today's societies, performance and productivity are extremely valuable professionally, and each more and more people realize that having psychologists in their work team enhances the results in a way clear. Human resources, organizational and sports psychology are good examples of this role.

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5. To develop cognition

From psychology, many techniques to improve cognitive abilities such as logical reasoning, memory, or problem solving. We speak of "meta-knowledge" to refer to knowledge about the learning processes themselves; understanding how our mental processes work is very important to perfect them.

6. To increase creativity

Psychology enhances creativity for different reasons. Not only does it allow us to analyze the artistic process at a deep level, but also to understand behavior and mental functioning of people is a very important aid for the creation of meaningful works and with realistic characters.

7. To solve specific problems

Both clinical psychology and other branches of this science have frequently focused on solving everyday problems. In this sense, we consider that the problem-solving techniques such as those proposed by D’Zurilla and Nezu, which determine a series of useful steps to face any complex situation.

8. To change the world

After all, many of us would like society to be more benevolent towards those who make it up. Although institutions tend to ignore psychology due to ignorance or conflicting interests, if the contributions of our science around individual well-being and collective functioning were taken more into account the world would certainly be a place best.